More Prestige thoughts
Jan. 16th, 2007 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI went and saw The Prestige a second time, which led to additional notes.
One of the open questions: when Sarah says "I know", does she really know they are twins, or does she mean "I know you are a schizophrenic bastard and that's what I'm going to tell Olivia"? My own impression is that she does know (having figured it out by then), and the reason why she ends the scene with the "do you love me?" question is that while dealing with the realisation she's not been living with one man but two is hard enough, she's perhaps trying to cope by clinging to the hope they might both love her. Which one of them doesn't, and so she folds.
The theme of doubles really shows up even in the smallest details, like the coin that Borden shows Sarah's nephew - which doesn't have a head and a side with the number, it has two heads, one at each side, equal. Summing up the crucial element of the Borden trick, that it's not one of them being Borden and one of them being Fallon but both of them being Borden and both Fallon.
Both Angier and Borden lose Olivia in the same way. Angier does when Olivia tells him figuring out Borden's trick won't bring his wife back, and Angier says "I don't care about my wife, I only care about the trick" - so the initial grief for Julia has long ceased to be his motivation, and we and Olivia see how far his obsession has dehumanized him - and Borden loses her when he tells her that "the part of me which is with you has never loved Sarah". In both cases it's the denial of feeling for the dead wife, the other woman.
The script really does a great job with letting Borden say things which have two different meanings, depending on what you know: "I've been asking myself the same question", "we can't trust her but I need her", things like the "you're pregnant, that's wonderful - you should have said it when Fallon was here, we must tell him at once!". Interestingly, though, it's the twin who doesn't love Sarah who gives in and tells her the secret of a trick - the bullet catching trick. It occurs to me that the superstition that revealing a trick to a non-magician is bad luck beautifully pays off because the next thing is of course that Angier shoots off two of Borden's fingers.
In between viewings, I had wondered about Olivia not catching on to the Bordens' trick, but a) she's on stage during the Transported Man number all the time, and b) she does tell Angier she found evidence Borden has to be using a doppelganger because of the fake beard and weight etc. she found which wasn't necessary for Borden's stage make-up. Of course, Angier doesn't listen.
I also had thought that while they were both with Sarah, only one of them was with Olivia, but not so: the one who tells her not to call him Freddie in the "I told you to leave your family at home" scene is definitely the one in love with Sarah. So they shared Olivia as well. No wonder this fandom has twincest, because the canon is pretty much incestous already.
Angier and his multiple suicides/murders: I had made the connection of all the Angier duplicates dying just like Julia did - and in what Cutter told him is a "peaceful" death before, but on second viewing I saw another double theme: all the Angiers die like Julia did - save for the one who gets shot in the end, of course - and the Borden twin who dies does so like Sarah did, through strangulation.
The early scene with Angier and Borden watching the Chinese magician and Borden explaining to Angier how the man's trick works is really one of the best cases of "character A explains his complete motivation without character B catching on" ever.
One of the open questions: when Sarah says "I know", does she really know they are twins, or does she mean "I know you are a schizophrenic bastard and that's what I'm going to tell Olivia"? My own impression is that she does know (having figured it out by then), and the reason why she ends the scene with the "do you love me?" question is that while dealing with the realisation she's not been living with one man but two is hard enough, she's perhaps trying to cope by clinging to the hope they might both love her. Which one of them doesn't, and so she folds.
The theme of doubles really shows up even in the smallest details, like the coin that Borden shows Sarah's nephew - which doesn't have a head and a side with the number, it has two heads, one at each side, equal. Summing up the crucial element of the Borden trick, that it's not one of them being Borden and one of them being Fallon but both of them being Borden and both Fallon.
Both Angier and Borden lose Olivia in the same way. Angier does when Olivia tells him figuring out Borden's trick won't bring his wife back, and Angier says "I don't care about my wife, I only care about the trick" - so the initial grief for Julia has long ceased to be his motivation, and we and Olivia see how far his obsession has dehumanized him - and Borden loses her when he tells her that "the part of me which is with you has never loved Sarah". In both cases it's the denial of feeling for the dead wife, the other woman.
The script really does a great job with letting Borden say things which have two different meanings, depending on what you know: "I've been asking myself the same question", "we can't trust her but I need her", things like the "you're pregnant, that's wonderful - you should have said it when Fallon was here, we must tell him at once!". Interestingly, though, it's the twin who doesn't love Sarah who gives in and tells her the secret of a trick - the bullet catching trick. It occurs to me that the superstition that revealing a trick to a non-magician is bad luck beautifully pays off because the next thing is of course that Angier shoots off two of Borden's fingers.
In between viewings, I had wondered about Olivia not catching on to the Bordens' trick, but a) she's on stage during the Transported Man number all the time, and b) she does tell Angier she found evidence Borden has to be using a doppelganger because of the fake beard and weight etc. she found which wasn't necessary for Borden's stage make-up. Of course, Angier doesn't listen.
I also had thought that while they were both with Sarah, only one of them was with Olivia, but not so: the one who tells her not to call him Freddie in the "I told you to leave your family at home" scene is definitely the one in love with Sarah. So they shared Olivia as well. No wonder this fandom has twincest, because the canon is pretty much incestous already.
Angier and his multiple suicides/murders: I had made the connection of all the Angier duplicates dying just like Julia did - and in what Cutter told him is a "peaceful" death before, but on second viewing I saw another double theme: all the Angiers die like Julia did - save for the one who gets shot in the end, of course - and the Borden twin who dies does so like Sarah did, through strangulation.
The early scene with Angier and Borden watching the Chinese magician and Borden explaining to Angier how the man's trick works is really one of the best cases of "character A explains his complete motivation without character B catching on" ever.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 01:30 pm (UTC)Our principal discussion at the end was what Sarah knew when. Our conclusion was that Sarah's Borden told her during a big row after the restaurant scene, in a desperate attempt to salvage their marriage. But, instead of reassuring her that he loved only her, the shock of realising that she'd been living with two men and even "her" one hadn't been prepared to trust her with something so basic tipped her over the edge. And at that point, she's able to see Olivia as a fellow victim instead of (or as well as) a rival, so it's Sarah's duty to see she's not hoodwinked too.
Though I was a bit disappointed that the bright nephew didn't turn up as a teenager and suss it out.
character A explains his complete motivation without character B catching on
You mean character B explains his complete motivation without character A catching on!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 01:36 pm (UTC)*nods* Sounds plausible to me.
Though I was a bit disappointed that the bright nephew didn't turn up as a teenager and suss it out.
You know, that hadn't occured to me, but yes, given that he saw through the bird trick and was given that double-headed coin by Borden, he'd have been in an ideal position to do so!
You mean character B explains his complete motivation without character A catching on!
*looks at initials and laughs*
True.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 06:07 pm (UTC)One more double that you missed: two Angier's are shot. One when he first tries Tesla's box and discovers it creates a copy of himself. And the one Borden shoots at the end. Also both Angier and Borden's wives die via suffocation - Sarah hangs herself (suicide) /one of the Borden's is hung (someone killing/execution), and Julia is suffocated(drowning is similar to hanging in that you are deprived of oxygen - killing/accidental)/Angier drowns himself (suicide).
Does Angier have Borden hung to obtain justice for Julia's death or to get rid of his competitor/rival or in order to protect the trick? Or a combination of all three?
Thanks for the post.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 06:41 pm (UTC)Does Angier have Borden hung to obtain justice for Julia's death or to get rid of his competitor/rival or in order to protect the trick? Or a combination of all three?
I think it had stopped being about Julia's death for him a while ago (and he probably did guess that whatever the truth was, Borden hadn't done it intentionally - though I wonder why whichever of the Borden twins had bound the knot did not tell the other just that, and then they simply told Angier, because he could hardly take it worse than he took the "I don't know" reply, and Borden didn't hate Angier back then). Though it doubtlessly factored it. I think the major reason was that death was the ultimate defeat and to him the one way he could see to end this obsession. Also, remember, he told Cutter that this would be his last performance - those 100 performances he had booked. He intended to end his career then anyway. But to end it and let Borden continue his? No way. So he plotted his death.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 10:29 pm (UTC)Another interesting theme in the film is how many substitutions there are - or trade offs, substitute one knot for another, one bird for a dead bird, a fake coin for a real coin, fake bullets for real bullets...Olivia looks like Julia...
I think of the two, Borden is the first to sell a piece of his soul for the sake of the magic act, but Angier in the end sells all of his for the sake of true magic. The question the filmmaker raises is that what is required to create true magic to give up one's soul? If so, is it worth the cost?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 05:21 pm (UTC)True, and indeed doubly true, as both Bordens do it, though it must predate the point at which we meet them in the movie. Obviously they must have made the decision to become one magician named Alfred Borden instead of two magicians called the fabulous Borden twins or whatever before starting in the trade, even as apprentices, because otherwise someone in the business would have known. (Cutter seems to know everybody and their dog, surely he'd have heard something?)
but Angier in the end sells all of his for the sake of true magic.
For the sake of true magic, or for the sake of true magic as a tool for revenge? Again, remember that Angier told Cutter he wanted to end his career after the 100 performances. Now, I don't know whether he'd been able to stay away from either stage magic or Tesla's machine if all had really gone as he planned - i.e. no second Borden to kill him - but if he wasn't lying to Cutter, he at least planned for an ending of magic in his life.
The question the filmmaker raises is that what is required to create true magic to give up one's soul? If so, is it worth the cost?
The cost as presented is definitely wrecked relationships - Sarah and Olivia for the Bordens, and Olivia again in regards to Angier, and also Cutter's and Angier's relationship in the end - figurative and literal crippling (Borden's fingers, Angier's broken leg), and human lives. And yet I think neither the Bordens nor Angier regretted the principle of it - regretted invidual losses, certainly, but not having gone for the magic in the first place...
no subject
Date: 2007-01-18 02:27 am (UTC)And we see a hundred waterfilled caskets, each one a literal metaphor for the phrase - I kill myself every night to entertain you. He seemed almost addicted to it, even though it was literally killing him and destroying his humanity - since the one who dies is not the copy but the one who goes into the booth each round. (OR at least that was my impression, never was quite sure which it was - the copy or the original who drowned.)
I would agree, I'm not sure either does regret it, in fact I'd think they probably don't - which was why a lot of people didn't like the film - unlike most films neither character is redeemed, there is no "satisfying" comeupance or "satisfying" realization of remorse.
Personally, I saw that as interesting and realistic, if a tad risky, but than Nolan is interested in characters who willingly sell their souls and do not necessarily regret the cost.
I wonder if their may be allusion to the magic of filmmaking and "commericial" art within this peice - that the filmmaker in a sense sells his soul a bit to make the art that will win the applause, to bring fame and fortune? That it speaks a bit to all obsessions - even one as simple as say spending hours on the internet - to what degree are we willing to give up our relationships and day to day lives for an elusive thing as magic?
For a dream? And to what degree do we regret it?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 02:02 am (UTC)I don't think it stopped being about Julia's death at all, although he definitely says so - just the reverse. He's living Julia's death constantly, and is so immersed in it he doesn't even think about the actual literal event of her drowning anymore. He's the proverbial fish* that doesn't see the water. The scary thing is that he tries to make dying-Julia-world everybody's, too. Especially Borden's.
*or drowning girl, as the case may be.